


The Brother Instinct

by spideywriting (catch_you_later)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Big Brother Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Morgan Stark Needs a Hug (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Precious Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Lives, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catch_you_later/pseuds/spideywriting
Summary: Peter's instincts alert him to Morgan having a nightmare.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 101





	The Brother Instinct

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed. Just self-indulgent fluff about my fave siblings. <3

Peter isn't used to his Spidey sense activating when he's at home. And his home can be found in many places these days. Home is May and Happy's apartment. Home is the streets of Queens. Home is New York. Home is _Earth_.

And home is the Stark residence, where he is right now, startled wide awake from his deepest REM cycle. That's a new one, too. Usually his Spidey sense doesn't wake him up unless he's already partly awake (like when he's nearly dozing at class after too much patrolling the previous night and Flash decides to throw something sharp at him), yet this time it did.

A jolt of unadulterated fear travels through his body, spreading icy dread in its wake.

He tries to quieten his breathing, stretching his senses wide to try and pinpoint what woke him up.

The house is quiet. Just three familiar heartbeats besides his own.

Tony. Pepper. Morgan.

Outside the waves roll into the shore gently and some wild animals are rustling around in the woods, but there are no sounds of approaching hostilities. Peter listens for a couple of minutes to make sure, to be absolutely 100 percent sure there's no one else around before focusing on the three people inside the house.

Nothing outside seems to pinging his senses. (And he double-checks his senses too. Even though logically he knows that they are nearly always correct nowadays, he has still been having a hard time trusting anything since Beck's subterfuge.)

First Tony.

He listens closely for his irregularly regular heartbeat, counting the beats carefully. 

The heart rate is in the normal range (for Tony), and he doesn't hear him having any difficulty breathing, either, so all is good there. He sighs deeply in relief.

Pepper is right next to Tony, so checking her next is easy.

Heart rate and breathing are both on normal levels for deep sleep, so no worries there either.

Which leaves the last member of their small family.

Morgan. His sweet, adorable little sister.

Honing in on Morgan, the first thing he picks up is a muffled sob. He stumbles up from his bed immediately, abandoning all attempts at stealth as he hurries to his sister's room. Now that he's focusing solely on her, he can hear her elevated heartbeat as well as the rustling from her beloved bunny plushie, Charlie.

From the sound of it, she's squeezing her really hard. Peter picks up his pace until he's almost running.

Finally the yellow door to her bedroom is directly in front of him, his hand already turning the handle (it was just down the hallway, but the hallway has never felt this long before).

The door turns quietly on well-oiled hinges so Peter whispers a quiet, "Morgan?", to avoid scaring her.

His only answer is a quiet hiccupping sob.

He walks to the bed and sits by the Morgan-shaped, trembling, sad little lump.

"Oh, Momo." His voice reflects the crushing pain he feels in his chest at the signs of her tears. He had known from the moment he had wrapped his head around the fact that he has a sister now, that he would do anything for her, anything to keep her as happy as possible.

He brushes a comforting hand over the covers. The lump stills.

"...Petey?" Her voice is hoarse from her tears, miserable yet trusting and holding a spark of hopefulness in it. Peter can feel that trust and hope settling on his shoulders. The weight is both strange and a bit unfamiliar, but wholly welcomed all the same. Cherished. 

"Yeah, it's me, munchkin. What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?" He tries to stroke her back reassuringly through the blanket. 

The head of the lump shifts, nodding. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" He keeps his tone light, despite the fact that his heart is breaking. He can imagine what she has dreamt about and nothing in this world is more wrong than a girl as sweet and kind and brilliant as Morgan dreaming about her dad's death. 

A distinct head shake. _No_. 

_Another tactic then_ , Peter decides.

"Okay then. Mind making some room for me then? I walked a long, long way and I'm kind of cold and I really, _really_ need a proper Morguna-cuddle right about now. Please, Morgan Morning Star? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" He says in a playfully whiny, entreating voice and pokes the Morgan-lump's stomach, eliciting a quiet giggle from it.

There's a piece of quiet, before- "'s not tha' far." Morgan's voice has taken a more mischievous tone and something in Peter's chest loosens as he gasps in fake affront.

"How dare you! I braved the great darkness of the night to reach you! I need a Morguna-cuddle or I might just _turn into a tickle monster_!" He attacks the lump, tickling her mercilessly. Morgan gives a muffled shriek and finally emerges from her cocoon, her giggles easing the atmosphere into a lighter, happier one.

"Stop, Petey!" She laughs.

"What was that? I can't hear you, I'm a tickle monster who doesn't hear anything unless he gets a hug!"

"Okay! Okay!" 

Peter stops tickling her, but turns out that he's been fooled because as soon as he relents, Morgan pounces on him, wriggling her fingers into his stomach in turn.

"Hey! That's not fair!" Peter gasps out between bouts of breathless laughter.

"Is!" Morgan's laughing as well even though she's trying her best to be quiet. It's a silent agreement between them to try not to wake Tony and Pepper whenever it's not strictly necessary. Pepper is working so much all the time that she needs all the rest she can get and Tony sleeping has always been such a rarity that they really need to let him stay asleep when he actually does fall asleep.

"Is not!"

"It is!"

One silent scuffle later Peter relents, dramatically flopping down on the bed and holding his arms up.

"Fine! I give, I give! I surrender to Morguna the Great Tickle Monster!"

Morgan smirks in a triumphant manner clearly learnt from her mother and jumps right on him, landing with a small, but weighty _thump_ , pushing all air out from Peter's lungs in a big _oof_. It's all alright though, because the slight smarting and breathlessness is nothing compared to the soft hug and the quiet _thank you Petey_ he gets after. His insides have turned to goo and nothing hurts anymore. He whispers a heartfelt _you're welcome, Momo_ back.

It's completely quiet for a moment, the sort of quiet that comes with being awake in the middle of the night. Serene and calm. Melancholy in a more positive, introspective way. Morgan rolls away from his chest and tucks herself into his side. They're lay there, side-by-side, chests pleasantly sore from all the laughter, basking in the quietness.

A few more moments pass. 

The comforter rustles a bit. Morgan asks in a quiet, almost nonchalant voice, "Petey?"

"...yeah, Momo Bear?"

“Why don’t you have more arms?”

Peter gives a surprised snicker. “I don’t know. It’d be quite _handy_ though.” He snickers some more, Morgan joining in.

“I wish I had more arms. I could hug you and Dad and Mom and Uncle Happy and Aunt May and Uncle Rhodey and Gerald _at the same time_.”

“Wow, that’s hardcore. What about Charlie though?” He reaches for the bunny which had been discarded to the side during the Great Tickle War.

Morgan gasps, appalled, and snatches the plushie from his grasp, immediately cuddling it to her chest protectively. “Her too!”

“Okay, okay, her too.” Peter chuckles.

They quiet down for a moment again. Peter can feel the calm silence lulling him into a pleasant doze.

He’s on the verge of falling completely asleep, when Morgan disrupts the silence with another quiet, “Petey?”

“Yes, Momo?”

“Will you sing me a lullaby?” The question is uncharacteristically tentative and she cuddles further into his side after asking like she’s afraid he’d say no. As if he would _ever_ say no to her. (He just hopes she doesn’t figure that out anytime soon. It’s enough that she already has Tony and most of the old Avengers entirely wrapped around her little finger, she doesn’t need even _more_ power.)

“Of course, munchkin. I’m not a very good singer though, so you have to bear with me.”

Morgan just hums in reply and Peter pulls the comforter from under them to nestle in and settle down for sleep. He’s resigned himself to the inevitability of having ice-cold feet in the morning, the byproduct of a night in Morgan’s too short, child-sized bed.

After they’re all settled, Peter thinks of the lullabies he knows. He doesn’t remember what his mom used to sing to him – or if she had sung at all. May liked to sing Italian lullabies, but he can’t recall the words for those. For some reason, the only words that come to mind are the words from a song that he heard many years ago in a movie soundtrack. He hums the melody a bit first to make sure he gets it right before singing softly,

“ _Just close your eyes, the sun is going down._

_You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now._

_Come morning light, you and I’ll be safe and sound…_ “

Morgan slowly relaxes against his side, her breathing evening out into slow puffs as she slips into dreamland.

He continues singing, warding off bad dreams with the quiet lullaby until the weights on his eyelids pull him under as well.

They both sleep very safely and soundly into the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't heard it, I strongly recommend listening to Taylor Swift feat. Civil Wars "Safe and Sound". So beautiful.
> 
> And if you're wondering why Peter refers to Morgan as his sister, but doesn't call Tony and Pepper "dad" and "mom", it's because within an hour of meeting him, Morgan looked at him and asked "are you my brother?" and Peter couldn't say no to her sweet and innocent tone and wide, pleading eyes.
> 
> If you liked this, please drop a comment and/or a kudo!


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